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KDWP study finds low eye-worm infection rates in Kansas bobwhite and pheasant samples
Summary
A Kansas Department of Wildlife & Parks (KDWP) sampling effort found low rates of the avian parasitic "eye worm" in hunter-harvested bobwhite and pheasant heads; KDWP staff urged Habitat First management and cautioned against treating with medicated feed absent stronger evidence of population-level benefits.
Jeff Prendergast, a staff member who presented KDWP's quail eye-worm sampling results to the Kansas Wildlife and Parks Commission, said the agency found lower infection rates than reported from parts of Texas and described management implications.
"Out of our 283 bobwhites, we only had 12 positives for eye worm infections, which was about a 4.2 infection rate," Prendergast told the commission, adding that pheasant samples showed a 12.5 percent infection rate. He said most infected birds carried a single worm; only one bobwhite had an exceptionally high count of 28 worms.
Prendergast described the eye worm as a parasitic nematode that lives in the bird's orbital cavity, requires an arthropod intermediate host, and is not known to infect mammals or people. Kansas sampling, collected in 2018…
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